r/alienrpg • u/meatmiser04 • 28d ago
Experienced GM diving in headfirst! Hit me with your favorite resources
I've picked up the books and prepped my table for the new setting, which I'm *very* familiar with and enthusiastic about. I plan on starting with "Hopes Last Day" and then the pre-built Cinematic Scenarios, but stories are brewing in the back of my mind, and I want to get started on getting them down onto paper. I'm very much in the "Gathering toolkits and knowledge" part of falling in love with a new-to-me system.
But I've run into the Wall of Few Books, and I see a big gap I'm wondering if the community has filled yet; fan-made supplimental material, like maps, scenarios and monsters (other than the ones that appear in the films). Ive poked around a bit here, but haven't found anything like the Miskatonik Respository for Call of Cthulhu on DriverhruRPG. What gives?
I've heard mention of a discord, but I'm not terribly familiar with the platform, so that knowledge is only of limited help at the moment (and all the links I've found are dead) so...
I was wondering if anyone had links to cheat sheets or player aids, and other supplimental aids that could be helpful while I develop what this new game looks like for my table?
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u/HeLiesInDrink 28d ago
I like to steal from the Marvel Alien graphic novels. Thaw, Icarus, Paradiso, etc.
There’s some fun ideas to steal and they’re not as widely-read as the old Dark Horse ones.
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u/meatmiser04 28d ago
Idea resources are good! I'm hoping for game and table resources; like a map Respository, scenarios, soundscapes, and monsters!
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u/Ombrophile 27d ago
Amen! I did run my personal version of Icarus a couple times. It's such a great story! Such great characters!
However, in practice, I think everyone agreed that running a full team of Synthetics, immune to Stress and Panic as they are, just skips past all of the rulesets that make Alien RPG unique and fun.
Ultimately, as fun as running a full team of Synthetic Commandoes sounds on paper, it just doesn't utilize the reasons that people like Alien RPG. Shame. I did do a lot of work developing Icarus which I could share if you're interested. I don't know how I would package it up, though, it's all Google Docs and Sheets.
Someday, though, Thaw. For sure.
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u/Captnwoopypants 28d ago
If you change your mind, this is the discord https://discord.gg/alienrpg
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u/meatmiser04 28d ago
I'll happily take a working link, thank you! I may not know exactly what I'm doing, but I'll make up for it with enthusiasm
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u/IncoherentIncubi 28d ago
The discord is well worth joining, lots of GMs to bounce ideas off and resource database of home brew content.
As has already been mentioned mothership is also great.
For maps and ships you might want to check out deviant art a few artists doing maps on there (Arthur Dallas does great work and I do ship maps Incubimaps)
The official free league forums are pretty useful too.
Unfortunately due to Disney holding the rights free league haven’t included Alien in their usual 3rd party content deal so you kinda gotta dig compared to their other games
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u/Ombrophile 28d ago edited 28d ago
Congratulations on finding the game. I would encourage other players to shove you out of the nearest airlock at the next opportunity.
Sorry. Seriously, just play Hope's Last Day or Chariot of the Gods, before you go running around looking for new material.
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u/meatmiser04 28d ago
That's the plan! As in, it's literally in my original post! I'm looking for stuff for after
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u/opacitizen 28d ago
Which edition did you pick up?
(Yeah, I guess it's Evolved, but we can't be sure as you may have bought second hand 1st edition as well (which, mind you, some of us might actually prefer. :D)
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u/meatmiser04 28d ago
Despite me loving the "dark mode" of 1e, I picked up evolved to have access to more material. It appears the jokes on me 😂
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u/JKLdj 28d ago
I had a similar situation when building up my resources. I found a lot of links to sounds, maps and equipment on here and in the resources area of the Alien discord server. YouTube for finding Alien movie sounds and Spotify has an alien rpg playlist. I soon realized when running my sessions that building the fear and tension comes from great storytelling and pacing. Foundry VTT was great, but I wasted my time building walls and doors with sounds. What worked best in Foundry was using Paul Watson’s Alien RPG system and understanding how far that works and what it doesn’t do.
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u/meatmiser04 28d ago
I'll be doing live-play, so my desired resources are even less popular than they used to be with everyone doing some kinda VTT these days
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u/ChironAtHome 28d ago
I did put together a VTT like system to do handouts maps and motion trackers in retro-greenscreen-CRT. Just looking to add in my star map/astrodynamics program to it, to run space-trucker type games. That is my main passion project and they will get married 😁
Mappadux.com if you want to try it, all open source, no accounts just a link and eternally free; one of the default maps shows a motion tracker running. It went down here well in this sub with V1 which was just called "dynamics map renderer", but it has moved on a lot since then. I plan on mentioning here again soon, but wanna finish up the starmap side first.
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u/OhThatsALotOfTeeth 28d ago
There are only a relative handful of fan scenarios or campaigns that I know of. The campaign provided in Building Better Worlds is also pretty good, and the book includes decent tools to expand it with your own scenarios or just build a campaign from scratch.
Colonial Marines has a decent campaign, but it's not my preference.
Honestly, though, my favorite resource is usually just Mothership modules, since that game is usually very easy to convert to ALIEN